Reps kick over unutilised N120bn subsidy fund

The House of Representatives has discovered N120billion in the coffers of the Subsidy Re-Investment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) unutilised. The Reps are unimpressed by the situation especially when there are hundreds of projects across the country in need of the agency’s intervention.

The agency, headed by Dr.Christopher Kolade, was set up early in the year by the Federal Government to execute projects that will cushion the effects of the partial removal of fuel subsidy on the generality of Nigerians.

The Reps are shocked that the agency has is yet to fully utilise funds allocated to it from the partial withdrawal of fuel subsidy. The organisation has a budget of N180 billion fort his year out of which it has accessed N120b.

The chairman of the SURE-P Committee, Kolade, reportedly told the House Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream) that it had disbursed N37b since July to contractors handling its various intervention projects while it plans to spend another N20b by the end of this month.

At the meeting with the committee, he said one of the reasons for the inability of the committee to fully utilise its funds is the process of settling contractors handling its projects.

He said: “We have to comprehensively verify job done by the contractors before we pay and that is part of the reasons why we haven’t been able to go faster than where we are now. We want the fund to affect the lives of Nigerians positively in line with its mandate, so we do not want to pay for what we cannot confirm”.

The House Committee expressed concern over interventions by the programme in projects already being handled by ministries, noting that it amounts to paying for inefficiency and corruption. The lawmakers said Nigerians are eager to see interventions by the Programme distinct from MDAs like the defunct Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF).

The chairman of the House Committee, Dakuku Peterside, however, urged Nigerians to be patient with the organisation as the House would do all it can to make the programme impactful.

He said: “Before they were inaugurated the government had identified areas of intervention and had to mind where those finds would be deployed for intervention but we sincerely believed that it could have been done diffidently. We, however, have to look that up again and take it up at our Committee level and of course make a proposal to the House.

“To assess SURE-P from the perspective of the short period they have been in existence, one might have a different impression. We have to look at it from the perceptive of their mandate.

“If we look at their mandate against their performance so far, you will come to the same conclusion that they have done well. But what we are saying is that there is something fundamentally wrong with that mandate and that mandate should change. The process should change.

“At our Committee level, we will look at the mandate and its process critically to see whether the structure is giving us the desired result or not, is the best for the Nigerian people and whether it is meeting the aspirations of the generality of our people. There are questions that must be answered.”

On the legality of the SURE-P that was raised by some of the lawmakers during the meeting, Peterside pointed out that the President has the power to put in place mechanisms to actualise his missions and SURE-P is one of such.

“We realise that SURE-P is one of such vehicles established to actualise the objective of channeling the funds realised from the partial removal of fuel subsidy to the amelioration of the lot of Nigerians.”